HYDERABAD: Telugu Desam Party president N. Chandrababu Naidu on Friday, said the defeat of Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh was not a setback to the formation of the Third Front and that it would evolve by the next general elections.

Addressing a press conference on the eve of the party's silver jubilee Mahanadu, the annual meeting at Tirupati, Mr. Naidu said the elections in Uttar Pradesh once again proved that Congress and the BJP were losing ground everywhere while regional parties, whatever the caste chemistry, were gaining. "Both Congress and the BJP have been reduced to zero in two major States of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar", he said. An alternative political formation to Congress and BJP, cobbled together by regional parties and

the Left could be a viable proposition, he said. Since elections were two years away, there was a possibility of realignment of political forces as the parties supporting Congress-led UPA Government now were "totally disappointed".

Food grain deficit

He said the UPA Government has failed on all fronts. For the first time agriculture growth remained stagnant. From a buffer stock of food grains the country was now reeling under deficit, forcing it to import wheat. Prices of essential commodities have shot up, he added.

He was also critical of the indiscriminate manner in which the Special Economic Zones (SEZs) were being set up and said the World Trade Organisation too pointed to the futility of such an exercise.

Even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and a Union Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar had conceded that the benefits of the economic policy were not reaching the common man. "They have come round to our view that an alternative is needed and not merely a course correction".

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